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Park Regis Hotel Feature Stair

One of TDS’s most recent architectural metalwork projects is open for the world to see, as the brand new Regis Park Hotel in Birmingham opened for business this March. We were commissioned on the design of a feature staircase to take pride of place in the lobby of the new hotel in part of a £50 million redevelopment. It was all modelled by us in 3D enabling us to come up with a viable design for this superstructure.

The end result is quite spectacular, yet there were some minor issues early on. The original design of the stairs was too wide for the room it was going in to. As the lobby had already started taking shape and the walls had been cast we had to make some adjustments in order to make it fit. In fact the beams that were in place to support the stair case had already been positioned; this resulted in the entire supporting beam structure being moved in order to make the stair design feasible.

There are two main columns that the stairs sit on with three arms at each landing. All of the detailed steelwork sits on that basic frame and all connects on one beam, this meant that we had to be really careful about positioning the design correctly. The architect had original wanted the stair to be free-standing, but owing to the space and the practicality of engineering this was changed to allow the beams to connect the staircase.

Due to the specific 3m pre-fabricated glass panel tracks which would form the balustrading of the staircase and hold the glass panels, we had to work the design to fit in with these readymade and pre-drilled tracks. This meant drawing to very specific measurements as there was absolutely no margin for error.

On a smaller scale there were a number of particular details that we had to fit in to create the overall aesthetic of the stair design. There is lighting under each of the stair treads, we had to take this into account and leave gaps on the side of the stair tread for all of the wiring, whilst also allowing for the socket panels which covered each step. This all had to be blocked out in order to create a nice clear finish.

This project has been a resounding success and the final staircase that we designed was fitted on site without a hitch. We encountered a few issues along the way, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome with some careful detailing; we managed to make sure that the finished product maintained its architectural integrity whilst guaranteeing practicality.